SC, Savannah River Site needs to stay out of the nuclear weapons business via the State

Gov. McMaster should refuse any government requests to create plutonium pits in South Carolina. Our beautiful state has become a nuclear waste ground. The Department of Energy continues to spend billions on nuclear cleanup of waste that has no repository. South Carolinians don’t want more plutonium in our state. We certainly don’t want the highly dangerous materials that result from pit production. Plutonium may be the worst of the fission byproducts. Plutonium, Pu-239, has a half-life of 24,100 years so it stays in the environment the longest. Rocky Flats, a former U.S. nuclear weapons production facility, is a superfund site because of contamination from producing plutonium pits. We don’t want a Rocky Flats legacy.

Allowing plutonium pits to be produced at the Savannah River Site magnifies the nuclear weapons role for South Carolinians. The waste that was produced 50 years ago from our involvement with nuclear weapons is still an environmental nightmare. We need to transition to clean technology and stay out of the weapons business.

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